The messenger whom Blick had sent into Selcaster that morning, before he himself went up to Markenmore Court to attend the Coroner’s inquest, had carried a letter to the principal bookseller and stationer in the old city. There were certain things that Blick found himself in great need of in tackling the problems which had just been put before him; the bookseller was the man to supply him. And now here were the bookseller’s parcels—one, a long, rolled thing, carefully wrapped in canvas; the other a fat little parcel in brown paper. Blick undid that first and drew out and laid on his table a folding road map, a general map of the county, two or three local guide-books, illustrated by photographs, a more ambitious work, Environs of Selcaster, also full of pictures, a Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, and a local time-table. He looked over all these carefully as he laid them out—they were just what he wanted. But he felt still greater interest in the long, canvas-covered parcel, which, divested of its wrappings, proved to contain the Government Ordnance Map of the Markenmore village and immediate surroundings—a big square thing, on stout paper, wherein every road, bylane, footpath, house, cottage, meadow, wood, field, coppice, river, stream, hedgerow, stile, was marked, named, and measured. Blick’s detective instincts rejoiced at the sight of that masterly performance—he blessed the men of the Ordnance Survey service for their meticulous care in preparing it. Going out in search of Grimsdale, he procured some tin tacks from him; with these he fastened his Ordnance Map to a convenient blank space on the wall of his sitting-room, and for the next half-hour stood smoking his pipe in front of it. At the end of that time he had memorized the general lie of his surroundings and committed the more important place-names to the secret cells of his quick brain. He turned then to the guide-books, maps, and timetables, and for two hours pored over them with absorbed intentness. He wanted to know all about roads, railways, and times—spade-work this, but of high importance. And he saw at once that, as Walkinshaw had said, during the informal talk which had followed on the adjournment, Markenmore lay near the middle of a sort of triangle, with main roads running along each side. The triangle formed by these roads was of the sort which has two sides longer than the third, but are equal to each other; the third was of further extent. Markenmore lay in the south-west part of this triangle, inclining towards the corner made by the bare line and the longer line of the three; consequently it was nearer to two sides of the triangle than to the third, and therefore to two of the main roads than to the other. Now of these three main roads, two, both starting from London, ran to the Court, within a few miles of Markenmore; the third ran all the way along the coast itself. As regards highways, then, Markenmore was in direct communication with London, exactly sixty-five miles to the north-east, and with several coast towns at nearer distances.
But in addition to the triangle made by these main roads, there was yet another, made by railways. The railways, indeed, followed, and ran parallel with the highways; they corresponded to them in every respect; road and rail ran alongside each other, with no greater intervening space at any point than a mile or so. Markenmore was within easy distance of these main railway routes. Several stations could be easily gained from it. Selcaster itself lay two and a half miles to the south-east; Mitbourne about the same distance to the east; there was a somewhat important junction three miles to the south-west; a roadside station four miles due north. And on turning to his time-table, Blick discovered that between four and six o’clock in the morning, there were, taking these four stations altogether, a respectable number of trains going north or south, east or west, and that from two stations, the junction aforesaid and the one to the north, there were at a quarter to six every morning, workmen’s special trains, which doubtless conveyed large numbers of craftsmen, artisans and labourers into the big shipping port a few miles away on the coast. Altogether, he saw that a smart, astute man would have no difficulty in getting away unobserved from the Markenmore district by an early morning train, in any one of at least six separate directions.
Turning again to the question of access and excess by the roads, Blick remembered what Walkinshaw had said about the facilities which the district afforded for successfully hiding a motor-car while its owner or occupant paid a visit. Here the Ordnance Map on the wall gave him great help. The entire contour and configuration of the country was plainly shown. North and north-east of Markenmore village, behind Greycloister, Mr. John Harborough’s big house, The Warren, Mr. Fransemmery’s residence, and Woodland Cottage, Mrs. Braxfield’s domain, lay over downs, which, bleak and bare, in the main, were intersected by deep lanes, and honeycombed by disused chalk-pits, thickly grown over with vegetation and shrubbery; there were also plantations, coppices, and here and there deep woods. It would be an easy thing for any one to turn aside from a main road into these solitudes, leave a motor-car in the shadows of some old, unworked pit, or amongst the elms and beeches of a wood, while he came down into the village. Moreover, Blick noticed that on the Ordnance Map were marked several grass tracks across the downs; now, he had already seen enough of the downs about Markenmore Hollow to know that the turf up there was so wiry, resilient, and firm that you could drive an automobile across it, almost anywhere, with as great ease as on a macadamized road and without leaving any trace. Therefore a man might have turned off the main roads, crossed the downs to some point within a couple of miles of the village, left his car in some convenient old chalk-pit, and felt assured that no one would know how he came nor how he left. Up there, on those solitudes, there was not a house, not a cottage, not even an outlying farm, marked on the map.
So much for these matters—Blick now turned to a third. Grimsdale had said that when the three men left his house at a quarter-past three on Tuesday morning, he saw them walk up the road in the direction of Greycloister and Mitbourne; Blick directed his attention to this road. Immediately in front of the Sceptre, flanking on its front garden, in fact, was the main road of the village; at the corner of the garden it divided; one branch, to the right, turning off, direct, to Selcaster; the other, on the left, turning to Mitbourne, and, at about three hundred yards from the Sceptre, passing the entrance gates of Greycloister. Now according to Grimsdale, the three men took this road and disappeared along it. But Guy Markenmore, if the medical evidence was reliable, was shot dead, about four o’clock, at Markenmore Hollow, about a mile northward of this road. How had he come there? The Ordnance Map and its meticulously careful markings, showed that. Two hundred yards from the Sceptre Inn, on the Mitbourne road, there were two footpaths, one on either side of the way. One, on the south, or right-hand side, went across the meadows in the directions of Selcaster; the other, on the north, or left-hand side, turned up to the downs, between Greycloister and Woodland Cottage. Near Markenmore Hollow—in fact, at the very spot whereat Guy Markenmore’s dead body had been found by the ploughman, Hobbs, this path struck into another, which led direct to Mitbourne Station. And on seeing this, Blick came to a conclusion: When the three men came to these footpaths, they separated. One man either turned back to the village (unlikely, thought Blick) or took the right-hand footpath to Selcaster (very probable, Blick considered); the other two men, of whom Guy Markenmore was certainly one, took the left-hand path, and climbed the hill-side to Markenmore Hollow. There Guy Markenmore was suddenly murdered, and whichever man it was who was with him, whether the presumed American who had come to the Sceptre at nine o’clock on Monday night, or the man who had been given admittance at two o’clock on Tuesday morning, was the murderer.
Arrived at this conclusion, Blick felt somewhat cheerful. He refilled and lighted his pipe, put his hands in his pockets, and lounged out of his sitting-room, across the hall, and into the bar-parlour. This was years before the imposition of those rigorous licensing restrictions which now prevent the free-born Englishman from taking his ease in his inn whenever he feels so disposed, and though it was only five o’clock in the afternoon the cosy bar-parlour contained several customers—village idlers who were discussing the inquest and the tragedy that had given rise to it. All and each already knew Blick as the great London detective who had come there to find out who had killed poor young Master Guy, and to hang that same varmint when found, and they stared at Blick’s light hair, blue eyes, chubby countenance, and smart town clothes as if wondering how such a youthful-looking cherub could possibly possess the faculties of a ferret and the persistency of a foxhound. But Blick, beyond giving them a friendly nod, paid no attention to these patriarchs and wiseacres—he fully intended to cultivate their acquaintance at some future time, but just then he wanted a word or two with Grimsdale.
Grimsdale, in his shirt-sleeves, was polishing glasses at the farther end of the bar; Blick strolled up and leaned over to him.
“I say!” he whispered. “A word or two with you, Grimsdale. That pipe you found——”
“Yes, sir?” returned Grimsdale, leaning across the bar.
“I suppose,” continued Blick, “that you took a good look at it?”
“I did, sir.”
“Did you notice the name or initials of the makers?”
“Yes, sir. It was one of those L. & Co.’s pipes. I know ’em well enough, Mr. Blick—my old guv’nor, Sir James Marchant, used to smoke ’em. He’s given me one of his old ones, now and again.”
“One of L?ewe & Company’s, eh?” said Blick, who had already assured himself of that fact,............